Wednesday, September 07, 2005

Forced to defend what some critics consider its slow and botched response to the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina, the Federal Emergency Management Agency said on Tuesday it does not want the news media to take photographs of the dead as they are recovered from New Orleans.

FEMA, which is leading the rescue efforts, rejected requests from journalists to accompany rescue boats as they went out to search for storm victims, Reuters reported.

A FEMA spokeswoman told the wire service that space was need on the rescue boats and assured Reuters that "the recovery of the victims is being treated with dignity and the utmost respect."

"We have requested that no photographs of the deceased be made by the media," the spokeswoman told Reuters via e-mail.

The Bush administration's decision to continue a policy of preventing the news media from photographing flag-draped coffins of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq has fueled criticism that the government is trying to avoid images that put the war in a bad light.

Wouldn't want Barbara Bush to look a fool, would we? Wouldn't want the Goldbergs and Malkins and OReillys of the world to have that tinge of conscience when they insinuate that the poor people who couldn't get out of NOLA in time had it coming. Wouldn't want to undermine support for our efforts to democratize New Orleans.

Look, what happened in New Orleans was real, and accountability for the embarassing failure to respond to the disaster must occur. For accountability to occur, we can't have our government pretending that the disaster was nothing more than NOLA being turned into a giant bathtub. If the mistakes of our government contributed to the deaths of thousands, we can't have that toll hidden from us. America needs to know.